If British people want to get out onto the streets protesting about energy hikes, it seems they'll soon have to do it in Tiananmen Square - be they ever so brave. Yet, anyone (who isn't a yeti) who wants to stay warm during a Scottish winter, whilst dealing with wage stagnation, might be minded to do so regardless of the peril.

Similarly, (just to give one little example of the misgivings it conjures up in the mind's eye) some years ago, a woman working for erstwhile British Steel, wanting to air a workplace grievance found that to do so, she had to take a trip to India, to the offices of Chorus Steel. (Notice the euphemistic title; it's a bit like a Federal Reserve being neither federal nor holding anything real, in reserve). That was a TV documentary steeped in irony and foreboding - yet it neither stemmed the flow of outsourcing, nor did it seem to ring any warning bells in the cloth ears of the UK public.

One doesn't necessarily have anything against the Chinese people at large, and a trip to Tiananmen Square for those who can afford it might be a good way to 'get away from it all'. However, if life in China is anything like it is here in the UK these days, any complaints about the cost of living are likely to hit a Great Wall of state-corporate indifference.

- Advertisement -

It's not surprising; authoritarian regimes are no doubt similar wherever one lives. Let's face it, when you privatise the assets, allowing the acquisitive to outsource the means of production and squirrel the proceeds into the tax havens, any subsequent pretence of democracy is frankly laughable - were it not so serious. Waving a ballot paper at a Muppet Show type duopoly every five years won't stop a north wind from whistling up your kilt and blowing your Tam o' Shanter off.

Capitalism, communism, whatever the ism, humans of a certain disposition gravitate towards the acquisition of wealth and power. When they get it, they cling to it like a bankster to his bonus whilst promising trickle-downs and threatening to take their indispensability to be better appreciated elsewhere - leaving the rest of us mere mortals behind in duly deserved purgatory.

Purgatory - brings us back to our bleak thoughts of Scottish winters. But let's not go there yet; let's go to Beijing. That's where UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne was this past week, selling off (what was left of) the family silver to pay the family's ("we're all in this together") gambling debts. It doesn't seem so long since 'the Red Peril' was everything that's wrong with the world. Now our illustrious leaders are cosying up to them whilst the rest of us prepare worryingly for the big freeze.

- Advertisement -

One might've thought that when they shifted large chunks of the legislature to Strasbourg it was a retrograde democratic step - purposeful or otherwise. However, to see control over a nation's source of heat and light, shift to the opposite end of the globe, never mind to the erstwhile, supposedly, diametrically opposite end of the political spectrum, should be a tad troubling to say the least. Yet, as George Carlin once said, "Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care". There's many a true proverbial word spoken in jest and they certainly laughed at him when he said it - whilst blissfully still, neither seeming to notice nor care. To give him his due, he was just doing his job, which is more than you can say for the politicos.

Some would suggest that there's nothing dodgier in this world than nuclear energy. The people who once lived in the Fukushima area of Japan might see it that way, for example. If your teeth light up luminescent green after chewing a tuna sandwich, you might do too. Others might suggest that not having nuclear energy, when they most need it (for example, during a Scottish winter) would see it differently, as concerns about radiation, tend to go on the back burner when brass monkeys start queuing-up at the welder's shop - dislodged testes in hand.

Anyone who ever wondered what 'One World Government' looks like might just be seeing it in its embryonic stage, albeit that perhaps the predatory eye of the Illuminati twinkled long since. Whether they are stupid or wicked, the world elite have managed, through a potent combination of privatisation and outsourcing, to dispossess everyone except their very selves. That's not surprising. Neither is it surprising that we, the sheeple, assisted them in doing it with our usual insouciance and complacency. It seems that unlike our Chinese counterparts, we forgot how to "hang together" - and now that we're all 'done up like kippers', we might as well prepare to "hang separately", to paraphrase one of the US's Founding Fathers.

"We're going to make sure of course that the very stringent British rules on safety are applied." Mr Osborne said earlier this week. "Oh, is that so?" One might wonder. "And how do you propose to do that without a pot-to-p*ss-in, having bankrupted the country and sold us all off into bondage?" It all sounds ominously similar to the sort of reassurance we used to get about banking regulations.

The government says that, "over time, stakes in subsequent new power stations could be majority stakes". Apparently, "massive" investment from China, Japan and Korea will ensure the UK of its future power supply. It would appear that "massive" amounts of wind and p*ss are already deluging us. We might not need nuclear power after all, which is just as well because with an outsourced "means of production" and the massive oncoming energy hikes being reported in the media today, one doubts having the wherewithal to afford it, "the very stringent British rules on safety" notwithstanding.

David McBain wants people to read his articles and blogs. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1948, one month before the start of the National Health Service (NHS UK) and fears now that he will outlive its usefulness to future generations. (more...)

"In his groundbreaking new book Bottom Up: Tapping the Power of the Connection Revolution, Rob Kall invites and eases us into in a much-needed meta-level shift -- a truly basic paradigmatic shift from top-down to bottom-up. He capably and imaginatively explores the differences between these ways of approaching life, clearly demonstrating that bottom-up allows us to flourish. His vision and his book are enriched by telling references to interviews which he has engaged in over the years with bottom-up researchers, theorists, activists, and dreamers in a variety of areas. Think about Rob's interviews. Read this revolutionary book. And take one step further into the bottom-up universe yourself. You will not regret it."

Bonnie Burstow, MD, author of Psychiatry and the Business of Madness and Radical Feminist Therapy, associate professor at the University of Toronto

Author Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narrative.